Quite honestly, what’s remained, I never would have predicted four years ago. What’s remained is almost unremarkable, but what’s remained is his very simple focus on trying to make something beautiful and great. And it really was simple. There wasn’t a grand plan of winning, or a very complicated agenda. That simplicity seemed almost childlike in its purity. And it’s true.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so happy, as I saw him—this very simple kind of joy—when he would realize, “This is actually working out. This could be great.” It was just the simplicity of that.

That stands in such contrast, obviously, to how he’s being frequently and popularly portrayed at the moment. The lack of agenda.

He certainly had a sense of a civic responsibility to make something good, as a way of somehow making a contribution to humanity, and to culture.